Harrowing lives of children sent to work in English mills revealed in first study of kind

Scientists have pieced together the first direct evidence of the lives of early 19th-century ‘pauper apprentices’ sent to work in cotton mills in the North of England. Photograph: Durham University

Scientists have found the first direct evidence of the harrowing and wrecked lives of children in the early 19th century who were transported from cities such as London to work in rural northern England cotton mills.

Academics at Durham University have published research from a project examining the skeletal remains of “pauper apprentices” found in a rural North Yorkshire graveyard.